A lot of people say that Morphers are the Meta right now, but why are they the Meta? What makes them so good that they are dominating the field. I thought before I go into how to handle these guys, I would go over there strengths and weaknesses.

Morpher Strengths:

Fast starts. They can secure their own power base and are hyper efficient.

Hyper Up/Down tricks. Can you say Manly Morpher Retreat!

Low Hyper costs for most of them.

Great Synergy of abilities.

They can use Teleporters, they gain cover, they can use speed zones or other ability zones.

Morpher Weaknesses:

Alpha forms can’t power attack. Many have some other attack trigger like beat back or toss.

Each Morpher can only spend 2 Power Dice on an attack.

Most Morphers only have a Defense of 5, and a few have a 4.

To make use of their Red Abilities they have to stay adjacent to each other. This means it’s a little easier to do multiple points of damage on a unit turn.

Alpha form Morphers rarely go back to back so it’s easier to steal turn order from them.

It can be easier to get into alignment with them. Good players can make this much harder.

While I don’t think this is a perfect list, it’s a good general list. Each Morpher brings their own unique mix of abilities that can either add to their strengths or reduce their weaknesses.

The Field of Battle

When I started working on this Days write up, I started to reconsider my map choice. While I really like Riverside Rampage, I feel like it gives too many advantages to Morphers to keep as my Primary Map. It’s too easy for Morphers to build a super power base on, even if I can place good counter buildings. I’ve seen Morpher players pull off 2 Discounts, and 3 Intels on this map which is like giving them an extra 5 A dice to start the game with. That kind of efficiency is dangerous and often sets the tone for the rest of the game. With that in Mind I’ve changed my primary map to be Mean Streets/Road to Ruin. When playing against Morphers I would pick Mean Streets. Here’s my reasons why. The map has water on it but not enough to do the Manly Morpher retreat trick. If they hyper down on the water they always leave at least one guy behind. On this Map you can’t do the Privateer Press Hyper up trick.

When I take a look at Mean Streets and where my oppenent can place their Morphers I see that this map limits the strength on the opening turn. Blank A dice show places then can be that don’t help secure buildings, and their are 10 of those. There’s 19 A dice with a single strike on them to show that they can help secure 1 building. There’s 4 B dice to show that if they place there they can help secure 2 buildings, and there’s only 1 spot where they can secure 3. Now they can start on their spawn zones but that means they have to spend an A die to bump a Morpher to spawn from that spot. I just don’t see that happening. When I look at how Morphers can be placed I can see some spots where I can be aggressive with my building placements to hinder their quick start up. With lots of foundations I’ll have a good chance at a strong Toss attack.

The Game within a Game

Alpha form Morphers don’t back to back very well, they can, but it’s a little harder for them, so stealing turn order is of higher importance against them. The Ultra forms of most of the Morphers tend to be high caliber monsters that can back to back. Against strong healing Morphers I will have to be more aggressive with my units to keep pace on the damage curve. Board Control is much harder to keep against Morphers, and especially Tyrranix. Very few monsters can keep board control against him. Killing one of their forms quickly is the key. In most ways my Macro level strategy stays the same. I think Power Dice denial will slow down their game. I’m more likely to go for a multi damage unit turn against morphers then other monsters. Using Hoist to set up an explosion will be a key part of my unit game.

God Mode

Ancient Osheroth is the King of the Hill. He’s the best monster in the game. I feel very dirty when ever I play him, it just doesn’t seem fair. He’s great at healing, in both forms. Has awesome synergy with fellow morphers and units. Just having an Elite Curruptor in their list can make you think twice before loading up on power dice. If you have a Cthulabite, and a Curruptor out, and you use RED Penetrator, you can reduce any monsters Defense by 3 points. Now that 7 defense monster is a 4 which makes pulling of 2 overload attacks not that hard. As scary as Osh is, he can be beaten, It’s just really really hard.

Repelling the Invaders

Galaxius-4 is considered one of the Weaker Morphers, and I think it would still be a rough match for me. Morphers in general are going to give me a tough time. I’m not really sure who would be the easiest for me to deal with. Galaxius-4 has radiation hazard immunity which lowers my damage output. Vorgax isn’t that tough but he has blitz on brawl and razor beetles. He can destroy lots of buildings quickly and that makes things rough for me. Macros might be the my best choice, but it really depends on map choice. If he can pull the hyper down over water trick a bunch then it’s going to be tough to get to him. Not sure there is a good match up.

1 Comment

The hard-to-hit superbase that morphers can set up at game start is probably THE big deal out of all the things they do well — I find that the more I can hurt that early power grab, the better I tend to do. You have the right units and to the right kind of monster to get over there and minimize the size of that first power-up. It’s just a matter of not taking much in damage for having done it.